


Third Time's The Charm

by DesertVixen



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Groundhog Day, Hunger Games, Introspection, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 10:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17558540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Haymitch Abernathy is stuck in his nightmare





	Third Time's The Charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Othalla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Othalla/gifts).



Sometimes, Haymitch Abernathy wished he had never learned about the force field that surrounded the arena. It had saved him, and doomed the people he loved. At the time, he had been operating on pure survival instinct, using the knowledge no one else had to take out the career Tribute. It would have been so much simpler if he had taken that axe to the head.

It was one of the reasons he drank, trying to escape the ghosts of his past. The alcoholic haze was safe, almost comforting, but it didn’t always work. It wasn’t just the loss of his family, his sweetheart, but all of the Tributes who had been sacrificed to the Capital for twenty-three years. 

Every year, he had to deal with his own personal hell.

Every year, he had to bring a pair of underfed and unprepared teenagers to the Capital, to compete against people who had all the advantages they lacked. How many of them had put their names in multiple times so they could feed their families? Even knowing that their risk of being called up was great, they could not prepare. They were too busy scrapping and surviving.

Every year, he had to ensure the train ride with a pair of kids – and they were kids, seemingly younger every year – who had never left District 12. It was likely they would never see it again. He hated how they were ripped away with barely a chance to say goodbye. He remembered what it was like to stand in their shoes, and he tried to help them, but it always ended the same. Every year.

Every year, he did his best to prepare them, to train them. He wasn’t always sober when he did it, but he doubted it would make a difference. The first year, barely out of the shock of everything that had happened since he won, Haymitch knew he hadn’t done enough, but he had tried.

Every year, he watched them die. 

Every year, he was forced to socialize with the other mentors, something he tried to keep as brief as possible by getting obnoxiously drunk. He couldn’t escape it entirely, not when he was the only Victor from District 12. The sight of the sleek, well-fed Victors and Tributes from the interior districts made him ill. Some years, he started a fight just for the hell of it. There was never a lack of provocation.

Every year he tried. No matter what other evils could be laid at his door, Haymitch tried to help a pair of teenagers survive the hellish competition of the Hunger Games. If only they had more time to prepare, they might have a chance. But like everything else, time was a luxury District 12 didn’t have. He had little luck attracting sponsors, and he sometimes wondered if Capital influence affected that – no help for the cheater, a little extra yearly punishment. Or maybe it was just that no one gave a damn about District 12.

Every year, he had to watch the reaping, to see who his two newest ghosts would be. It was why he limited his interactions with everyone, why he tried not to get attached to anyone.

Every year. It was like a nightmare he could not escape.

***

The Reaping, the day he hates more than any other. Haymitch can’t stand the waiting, not without more alcohol than usual. He stands there as the mayor reads the names of the Victors, and he wishes more than ever that he had taken that axe. 

It was his recurring nightmare that Madge Undersee would be called up, that he would have to relive Maysilee Donner’s death, be responsible for Maysilee’s niece never coming home.  
Primrose Everdeen. The sound of her name made his heart sink. Taking her would be nothing short of murder. It isn’t Madge at least, but Primrose Everdeen was a nightmare he had never even imagined.

Then suddenly there was a commotion, as Katniss Everdeen volunteered to take her sister’s spot – something that had never happened in all of the Reapings he had suffered through. The first few years, he had been too grateful to not hear his name that he hadn’t even considered it. In his year, it had been as if time had stopped. Maysilee had been up there, her face frozen and shocked as she stood alone, as the friends who had been pulled away from her wept. He didn’t even remember the names of the other two unfortunates, the “extra” Tributes in honor of the fiftieth Hunger Games.

Finally, a change. Haymitch dared to hope that maybe this year would be different.

*** 

These two were fighters at least, survivors. If they could just get past the Cornucopia, they might have a chance. 

The Cornucopia loomed large in his nightmares. No matter how much training and advice he crammed into the short period available, no matter how much he warned them not to dally…they always did. They always took too long, or moved too slow, and too often ended up dead on the floor. Even these two weren’t equipped to survive it- they’re fighters, but not deliberate and trained killers.

Grab something, get out, get away. Find some water, find some temporary safety or advantage. He tells them every year. Hopefully this year will be different.

But it isn’t. Katniss and Peeta don’t listen, and Katniss dies over an orange backpack.

*** 

The Reaping, the day he hates more than any other. Haymitch can’t stand the waiting, not without more alcohol than usual. He stands there as the mayor reads the names of the Victors, and he wishes more than ever that he had taken that axe. 

It was his recurring nightmare that Madge Undersee would be called up, that he would have to relive Maysilee Donner’s death, be responsible for Maysilee’s niece never coming home.

And yet, this year, Haymitch has the feeling he knows it won’t be Madge. 

The sound of Primrose Everdeen’s name jolts him, makes him wonder if he’s not suffering some sort of alcohol-induced dementia. The sound of her name made his heart sink, but he knew that was who would be called… just as he knew Katniss would volunteer. He had the eerie feeling that he had lived through these events before.

At the same time, he sees Katniss dead in the Cornucopia over a backpack.

The train ride, the training, Katniss’s arrow through the Gamesmakers’ apple – Haymitch knows it will all happen. But maybe this time, she can survive – if she listens, which Haymitch acknowledges is not likely.

But he tells her anyway.

And she survives the Cornucopia – she doesn’t get the bow that is there, unfortunately, but she gets out of the Cornucopia alive.

She survives the Cornucopia, and the fire, but dies when she falls out of a tree, trying to bring down a tracker jacker nest on a group of Tributes. 

*** 

The Reaping, the day he hates more than any other. Haymitch can’t stand the waiting, not without more alcohol than usual. He stands there as the mayor reads the names of the Victors, and he wishes more than ever that he had taken that axe. 

It was his recurring nightmare that Madge Undersee would be called up, that he would have to relive Maysilee Donner’s death, be responsible for Maysilee’s niece never coming home.

He knows it won’t be Madge. He knows exactly what will happen, because this is the third time. Maybe this time will be the charm. Maybe the odds will be ever in their favor.

Primrose Everdeen will be called. Katniss Everdeen will volunteer. She will survive the Cornucopia, but she will fall out of a tree, and die.

The train ride, the training, Katniss’s arrow through the Gamesmakers’ apple – Haymitch knows it will all happen. But maybe this time, she can survive – if she listens, which Haymitch acknowledges is not likely.

But he tells her anyway. He tells her about the Cornucopia, and tells her about the fire, and he warns her about the tree.

And she survives the Cornucopia – she doesn’t get the bow that is there, unfortunately, but she gets out of the Cornucopia alive.

She survives the Cornucopia, and the fire, and she brings the nest down on the Tributes. A few tracker jackers sting her in the process, but the important part is that she gets her hands on a bow and arrows. 

Now she’s a hunter again, and she’s back in her element. Haymitch watches her befriend the Tribute from District 11, and tries not to think about Maysilee too much, hopes that someone else will be the one who kills the girl – Rue, he reminds himself – because he knows Katniss won’t be able to. He cheers as she destroys the supplies, and he watches as she holds Rue’s hand as she dies, watches her lay flowers over the body. He can’t avoid thinking of Maysilee, dying as birds rip out her throat.

Katniss is a hunter. A survivor. 

And then the Gamesmakers decide that two tributes can live, as long as they’re both from the same district. They’re giving District 12 a chance, for once.

Or were they? Like everything the Gamesmakers did, there had to be a catch.

*** 

Of course there had been a catch. The rule change had been a lie, a tactic, a trick. Just like the trick he had used in the arena, Haymitch thought. 

Katniss will win this, he thinks – she will kill Peeta and he will have her for company in the Victors’ Village. Maybe then she’ll understand why he is the way he is.

And then he sees the berries in their hands. 

They were going to use what was in the arena, what no one else had realized, to win on their own terms. He wonders if when they die, he’ll wake up again at the Reaping. Maybe they will have another chance, although he doesn’t know what advice he can give them.

They’re the best pair of Tributes he’s had in over twenty years.

But this time, they don’t die. The Gamesmakers decide to let them live, give District 12 a victory.

It isn’t until later that night that he realizes they’ve done something far more dangerous. 

They have started a fire.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it! I enjoyed the idea of sticking Haymitch in a Groundhog Day scenario.


End file.
